Times Cryptic Jumbo 1341

Author   PenfoldPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
First of all, thanks very much to the setter for the “wave” at 1 across.  I’m going out on a limb and saying it isn’t coincidence given that it’s the first clue in a puzzle that’s on my watch for blogging.  Fame at last.

Onto the puzzle itself, this was a fairly gentle affair taking me 35 minutes, but that’s not to say it wasn’t enjoyable.  There were a couple of terrific clues in here and a couple of new words to keep up the educational benefits.

First in was RULER but that’s because, spookily, I was drawn to 1 across and wanted to solve it from the off, but needed the first checking letter before light dawned.  Last was CLOACAL.

Clues are in blue with the definition underlined.  Different brackets mean different things:

Square to expand a standard crossword abbreviation: L[eft]
Wiggly to denote letters not used:{afterthough}T
Rounded followed by a * to indicate anagram fodder: (forded)*
Rounded to add clarification: cool (as in trendy)

Deletions are denoted by strikeout

CD = cryptic definition, DD = double definition, I guess other stuff is spelled out for you.


Across

1
US broadcaster possessing spirit and goodness (6)

CRUMBS – CBS around RUM, goodness as in crikey. Penfold’s catchphrase.

5
Possible attraction of zoo staff drinking mostly water (7)

MACAQUE – AQU{a} in MACE.  Loadsa monkeys fall within this genus.

9
Support one nursing husband’s lumbago maybe (8)

BACKACHE – BACL ACE around H[usband]. Small Faces earworm not unwelcome.

13
Fancy a work by US playwright in a state (4,1,3,2,1,3,3,4)

LIKE A CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF – Like (fancy) A then the play by Tennessee Williams.  I wonder how Lionel Blair or Una Stubbs would have clued that.

14
Starter of beef in stuff put away as main dish (8)

CRABMEAT – B{eef} in CRAM EAT (main as in sea)

15
Middle-of-the-road gem? (7)

CATSEYE – CD.  Percy shaw is a pub quiz staple.  Insert your own pencil sharpener joke.

16
A cricket club hides papers with one cutting (6)

ACIDIC -A C[ricket] C[lub] around ID I

17
Able to remove certain stains: blood? (10)

BIOLOGICAL – DD as in washing powder / bood relative

20
Guide a sailor writing for petty officer (6-2-4)

MASTER-AT-ARMS – A TAR MS (manuscript) after MASTER.  Not sure how master = guide mind you.

23
Spots what’s in green caravan heading west (4)

ACNE – revserse hidden in greEN CAravan

24
First lady’s holding a sign for those fleeing danger (8)

EVACUEES – EVE’S around A CUE.  Both my parents were evacuated from London to the northern home counties in the war.  Cool story bro.

26
Lament destruction of diaries ending in failure (4,4)

DIES IRAE – (diaries)* + {failur}E

29
Radios in bankrupt state (12)

RECEIVERSHIP – RECEIVERS HIP.  Loved this clue.  That “IN” looks like it’s part of the wordplay but accounts for HIP, man.

30
Fair with balanced workforce? (10)

EVENHANDED – DD, the second vaguely cryptic

32
Southpaw went off with woman’s clothing (4-6)

LEFT-HANDER – LEFT then AND “clothed by” HER.  Another cracker – “with woman’s clothing” is a brilliant way to get to HANDER.  Bravo.

34
Perfect example of Queen’s nicest ground (12)

QUINTESSENCE – (queens nicest)*

36
Leaves in launch, moving surreptitiously (8)

STEALING – TEA in SLING

38
Made orderly want to bear a small number (8)

NEATENED – NEED around A TEN.  Is ten a small number?  Depends whether you’re talking about an evening’s consumption of pints of beer or pork scratchings.

39
Heard highly fancied player is to give up (4)

CEDE – sounds like SEED

41
Small dainty queen packed in exam for her own benefit? (4-8)

SELF-INTEREST – S[mall] ELFIN then ER in TEST

43
Reveal too much love poetry around show in NEC? (10)

OVEREXPOSE – O VERSE around EXPO

44
Brief job at dentist’s not complete (4,2)

FILL IN – FILLINg.  Brief as in not debrief

46
A series of races round trees in the initial stages (2,5)

AT FIRST – A T[ime] T[rial] around FIRS

48
One calling meeting to trick salesman out of pennies once (8)

CONVENOR – CON VENdOR

50
Course generating sparks to a certain degree? (10,11)

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING – CD based on the fact that sparks is slang for electrician

51
Troops promise Y-fronts perhaps (8)

MENSWEAR – MEN SWEAR

52
Proceeds from gambling beginning to last (7)

TAKINGS – STAKING with the S sent to the front

53
Prince George for one blocks charter (6)

REGENT -E.G. in RENT as in charter a boat, say

Down

2
One regretting keeping large measuring device? (5)

RULER – RUER around L[arge]

3
Be like Maeve, debauched, not of this world (4-7)

MAKE-BELIEVE – (be like maeve)*

4
Second enclosure protects very small space for root (8)

SCAVENGE –  S[econd] CAGE around V[ery] EN (printer’s space)

5
Assembled boxing article, as intended (5)

MEANT – MET around (boxing) AN

6
Cold area in neighbourhood connected to old sewer (7)

CLOACAL – C[old] then A[rea] in LOCAL.  Cloaca seems to be a Latin word for sewer (not one who sews) but also has a biologocal meaning connected with stuff going on “downstairs”.

7
Queen, bound to gather autumn nuts, makes breakthrough (7,4)

QUANTUM LEAP – (autumn)* in Q[ueen] LEAP.  I suspect I was not alone in waiting for the vital checking letter before deciding which way to jump, as it were.

8
Call up the day before receiving fine (5)

EVOKE – OK in EVE

9
The critical point at which the beer runs out? (6,3)

BITTER END – CD/DD hybrid I reckon

10
Dance company never goes abroad initially (5)

CONGA – CO[mpany] N{ever} G{oes} A{broad}

11
Evil island state supporting WMD briefly (11)

ABOMINATION – I[sland] NATION supporting (i.e. underneath) A-BOM{b}. Evil as a noun.

12
Element from a fine part of UK in bad odour (7)

HAFNIUM – A F[ine] N[orthern] I[reland] in HUM.  I’ve tried to familiarise myself with the names of all the elements a few times but I have no recollection whatsoever of this one.

18
Elected pope once, harsh (9)

INCLEMENT – IN CLEMENT

19
Dealt with more than English in record (7)

COVERED – OVER E[english] in CD

21
Order extremely saucy new items in home counties (9)

SYSTEMISE – S{auc}Y then (items)* in SE (home counties as in South East of England)

22
Ace ran into hard unknown stone, this one? (8)

AMETHYST – A[ce] MET H[ard] Y ST[one]

25
Sticking together, clubs formerly curbing her energy (9)

COHERENCE – C[lubs] then ONCE around HER E[nergy]

27
Are experts defending overdraft? Dial them first (4,5)

AREA CODES – ARE ACES around OD

28
A classic way into swimming and flying (8)

AVIATION – A VIA (into)*

31
Serious retired actor of old entertained millions (7)

EXTREME – EX (Sir Herbert Beerbohm) TREE around M[illions].  I know there are those who think old Beerbohm should be retired from these puzzles, but he founded RADA, so I reckon he’s good for a few more years yet.

33
In emotional state, Hardy girl admits scolding knight (11)

TEARFULNESS – TESS (of the Ds) around EARFUL N (crossword notation for knight)

34
Where only officers are allowed spades, say? (11)

QUARTERDECK – just about a DD with the second being cryptic and requiring a bit of word splitting, hence the QM.  If you don’t know why “spades” might be represented by “quarter deck” I’ll happily enlighten you over a high stakes game of poker.

35
Monogram in English cases a job for GCHQ? (11)

ENCIPHERING – CIPHER IN cased by ENG[lish]

37
Gardener I trained as specialist in pineapples? (9)

GRENADIER – (gardener i)*, pineapple being slang for a grenade (based on appearance)

40
Arctic residents check two rivers (8)

REINDEER – REIN (river) DEE R[iver]

42
Record one scene without lead hermaphrodite (7)

EPICENE – E.P. I sCENE

43
Old fool retaining label’s regular shape (7)

OCTAGON – O[ld] CON around TAG

45
Some exert influence over explosive constituent (5)

NITRE – reverse hidden in exERT INfluence

47
Refrain from eating inspiring oriental banquet (5)

FEAST – FAST around E for Eastern / oriental.  I’m struggling to recall if I’ve previously seen oriental used quite so indirectly to denote “E”.  Anyone?

48
Fruit, one found in fringes of Caucusus (5)

CONES – ONE is C{aucusu}S

49
Oscar managed to get hold of golf magazine (5)

ORGAN – O RAN around G

16 comments on “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1341”

  1. This is the first time in years that I timed myself on a Jumbo, I’m not sure why. Anyway, it went in fast for me–but with one error, since I spelled ‘cipher’ with a Y– and perhaps as a result, I have no memory of it; it’s only now that I’ve read Penfold’s blog that I can appreciate clues like RECEIVERSHIP & LEFT-HANDER. Is ‘oriental’–> E legit? I can’t think of a similar case of cluing, but of course I never can think of examples when I want them.
    1. It’s a variant spelling, not a spelling error, right? And so far as I can see, nothing in the clue hinges on which variant is used; or am I missing something?
      1. cypher is a word, but sadly neither ODO, OED nor Collins nor even OneLook have encypher(ing).
        I discover I have one wrong in 1342 as well, so I really am Mr Grumpy this morning…

        Edited at 2018-09-15 08:38 am (UTC)

          1. No, it was actually the concise jumbo .. they share the same number nowadays. Where I failed to spell detritus correctly, too many i’s and not enough u’s.
            Not sure why those solutions have been published anyway.. surely the closing date for entries is next week?
  3. Well I managed ENCYPHERING and a typo. Now I write it out flat it does look wrong, but I hate it when I carefully check through the biggie and still err, especially when I get in under 30 minutes, which doesn’t happen very often.
  4. I got ENCYPHERING wrong too, but I also managed to miss-spell QUINTESCENCE. The puzzle only took me 49:55, so it must have been on the easy side, despite my errors. To reiterate Jerry’s comment, I finally completed Jumbo cryptic 1342 last night and was puzzled to get the result. I thought it was open until next week. This puzzle’s result was up last night too instead of this morning! Anyway, Thanks setter and Penfold.
    1. I think the Jumbo results are normally up on the second Thursday after publication. I’m not sure why there’s a convention of publishing Jumbo blogs on the Saturday after that – maybe in the distant past the solution wasn’t available until then. That doesn’t, of course, explain what happened with 1342 …
  6. FOI RULER. Wonder if people younger than 40 know of SOUTH PAW, it was common in the era of Muhammad Ali et al in the 60s and 70s. COD GRENADIER for perfect surface.
    Ong’ara,
    Nairobi,Kenya.
    1. So far as I know SOUTHPAW is still in use in baseball, which is, I believe, where the term arose in the first place.
  7. Thanks Kev, was not aware of the baseball angle of the term, google has just proved so, but then l am no baseball fan.
    Ong’ara,
    Kenya.
  8. This was definitely one of the more straightforward Jumbos we’ve had. Re 38A, one meaning of “ten” in Chambers is: “Used indefinitely, a large number”, which I’m sure I’ve seen in Mephisto/Listener-type puzzles before. I don’t think the surface would have suffered if the word “small” had been removed. Seem to remember a chapter on monotremes (which have a cloaca) in Bill Bryson’s book about Australia. Fortunately ENCYPHERING didn’t even come to mind so I wasn’t tempted by it, but I did fall foul of the 1-in-3 odds for the grape variety clue in the following week’s Jumbo Concise.
      1. Thanks! I was drawn out of the hat 8 times last year, I think, for various crossword competitions but hadn’t won a sausage so far this year, so this win was a welcome sign that I hadn’t somehow offended the crosswording gods.

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